


make up something to believe (in your claw of claws)

by lennynards



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25943737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lennynards/pseuds/lennynards
Summary: Five movies that could have influenced Jake Peralta’s career path, and one that ultimately did.
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 21
Kudos: 51
Collections: CAILURE EXCHANGE 2020





	make up something to believe (in your claw of claws)

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #4
> 
> Title from The National’s “Mistaken for Strangers,” kind of.

**01\. THE POSTMAN.**

"Yeah, no," the guy at the counter said for the third time. Even from his spot behind the door, Jake could tell Amy was losing her cool. It was in the way her spine got impossibly straighter when she inhaled.

"I'm sorry, sir, did you mean yes, there isn't anything perishable in here, or no, there isn't anything perishable in here?"

On the counter between them, the box moved.

"Ten bucks it's a lizard," Rosa said, startling Jake and making him smack his head into the door. Rosa laughed at him. "You're gonna have a bruise."

"I am not." He rubbed his forehead. He totally was. "And you're on, there's no way it's a lizard, lizards don't move that much. It's a cat."

Rosa frowned. "What kind of monster mails a cat?"

"Garfield, duh. What kind of monster mails a lizard?" 

Rosa shrugged. "Probably more people than mail cats. You can fit more into a box."

Jake thought about it for a minute. Could that be true? Volume-wise, probably, since lizards were arguably smaller, but they were so pointy and inflexible. Cats had a malleable quality about them, like that calendar Terry had in his locker with the kitten squished into a jar. A person could probably cram a lot of cats into a confined space. Wasn't that what _Hoarders_ was about? Nobody ever hoarded lizards.

"Hey." Rosa snapped her fingers in front of Jake's face. "He's leaving. Wanna go shake it?"

" _Yes_." 

It was a scramble as he and Rosa both tried to shove through the door to get to the cart where Amy had — very gently, almost like she knew it was a precious medium-sized cat forced to live in a box to get to Abu Dhabi as part of some elaborate joke perpetuated by her cat… cousin.

"Were Nermal and Garfield related?" he asked.

"What?" Amy still looked stressed from her interaction with human Garfield. "Who?"

"No," Gina said from where she was manning the passport counter, taking selfies against the blank backdrop. "They were just mortal enemies. Like me and Hot Dog Carl."

"There's no air holes," Rosa said, picking up the box carefully. "This guy is definitely a monster."

"I thought you and Hot Dog Carl made up," Boyle said, coming around the corner with a plastic bin of unsorted letters. 

"No," Jake said, trying to pull the box out of Rosa's arms without scrambling the poor creature that was definitely trapped inside it, "they almost did but then he asked if she wanted ketchup last Friday and now he's dead to her again."

" _Ketchup_ , Boyle." Gina shuddered. "I have never been so insulted."

"I watched her put like, a gallon of ketchup on her hamburger yesterday," Amy said to Jake. 

"Yeah, but that's because she wanted it, not because Hot Dog Carl asked," Jake whispered back. 

"Oh right, obviously." Amy rolled her eyes. And then, as if she only just realized what was going on, asked, "What the heck are you two doing?"

Jake straightened up so his ear wasn't pressed against the box. Rosa did the same, sneakily trying to drag it closer to her. Jake tugged it back so it was equally between them. "Clearly we're trying to rescue the kitten that is one hundred percent in this box, Amy."

"He means lizard. Only an idiot would ship a kitten."

"I ordered a kitten through the mail once," Scully said, appearing in the doorway.

"See?"

"Why are your shoes off?" Amy asked him.

"Hitchcock stepped in a puddle on our route so I stepped in one in solidarity and then our socks got wet so they're drying."

"Where are they —"

"Ames, don't," Jake said, but it was too late.

"The microwave," Scully said proudly.

"Aaand there goes lunch." Jake had brought leftovers, too. Now he was going to have to eat cold soup. Great. 

In his hands, the package moved; Jake almost dropped it. "Nermal!"

"Was that you?" Rosa looked at him suspiciously.

"No. Was it you?"

"No."

"Why are you two being weird?" Boyle asked. 

"They think it's a cat. Or a lizard." Amy said it like she thought he and Rosa were being idiots, when in fact they were being incredibly caring people and dedicated employees. 

"In an unmarked, unvented box?"

Jake nodded. See? Boyle got it.

"But that's a violation of US Postal Code five-twenty-two point one!"

"Yeah, and it's also weird as hell," Rosa said.

"We need to open this box," Jake said. "Right now. To preserve postal law."

"Postal law?" The look on Amy's face was a very specific combination of exasperated and appalled. It was a look Jake loved more than most things on this earth. "That's not a real thing."

"Then why does Boyle know the numbers?"

"Just because it has a number doesn't mean it's a _law_. Do you think phone numbers are legally binding?"

"I need something to open this. Give me your box cutter."

"Rosa!"

"It's postal law, Amy." Rosa held her hand out for the box cutter Jake was suddenly having second thoughts about handing her, based one hundred percent on the look on Amy's face. It had left exasperation behind and was now just appalled. It was decidedly less great. 

"This is wildly irresponsible, even for you."

" _Wildly Irresponsible, Even for You_ , title of your sex tape," Jake said because that always pushed Amy straight into exasperation territory.

"Nice." Rosa laughed and tried to high five him without stabbing him with the box cutter.

"What is going on here?" Holt asked, and for a brief, painful second Jake wished that Rosa _had_ accidentally stabbed him with the box cutter so Amy would take him to the emergency room, far away from where Postmaster Holt was. 

"This package is in direct violation of US Postal Code five-twenty-two point one, Postmaster Holt," Boyle said. 

For a moment, Holt just stared at them all. Jake was worried Amy was about to self-combust, tension radiating off her in waves. 

"Listen, Postmaster," Jake said, "this super sketchy guy came in and he basically bullied Amy —" Amy made an outraged sound, but he ignored it, "— into mailing his suspicious package, which Rosa and I _both_ felt move, and it is either a kitten or a lizard and it would be irresponsible of us to just let this package go all the way to — where's it going?"

"Tampa," Amy said.

"Tampa, which is in _Florida_ , may I remind you. This little guy could be headed straight into the jaws of the Tiger King. We can't allow that. We have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of the mail."

Holt didn't blink for thirty-six seconds, and then he said, "Over what kingdom does this alleged king reign?"

Thankfully, or maybe terrifyingly, the box shifted in Rosa's arms at that exact moment. Her eyes got impossibly big. "Sir."

He nodded. "Open it up."

They all crowded around the counter, jockeying for the best position as Rosa efficiently sliced through the tape. As she peeled back the cardboard, Jake heard a faint hum. Almost like something was purring.

"I told you," he said, already planning all the things ten dollars would buy him as Rosa pulled away a layer of tissue paper. "It's totally a — oh. It's a vibrator."

"Oh my," Holt said.

"Seriously guys?" Terry said, suddenly over Rosa's shoulder, startling everyone except Postmaster Holt. "You do this every time. How many times do I have to say it: it's _always_ a vibrator."

"You thought it was a _lizard_ ," Jake said, pushing the box at Rosa. "For being dumb, you have to turn it off."

"Tell me," she lifted the vibrator out of the box and raised her eyebrow, "exactly how many cats does this look like to you?"

"Excuse me," a very red-faced woman said from a few feet away, her purse clutched to her chest, "but I really need to buy some stamps."

**02\. SPEED.**

Jake tilted his head. Artistically, the scope of the graffiti was kind of majestic when you thought about it. It somehow spanned from the ground all the way to the roof, covering the entire side and wrapping around to the back.

"How did he even know this bus was yours?" Boyle asked.

"Doug Judy always knows." Jake knew he probably shouldn't have felt proud of that, but whatever. It was nice to be wanted, even if the person who wanted you was a renowned thief and street artist. Like a modern-day American Banksy. An even _more_ modern-day one. Who also committed light crimes sometimes. 

Not that Doug Judy _wanted_ Jake. "I think he's magic."

Boyle looked at him. "Or maybe he placed a tracker on your bus."

"Huh." Jake hadn't thought of that. Maybe. Probably not. He'd have to remember to look for one someday when he felt like crawling under the bus or wherever someone would logically put a tracker. Maybe after lunch.

"Less talking, more washing," Terry yelled from across the lot.

"I don't see why we have to do this," Jake yelled back, gesturing to Boyle's hose and his own soapy sponge. "I became a bus driver to save the people of New York from bombs!"

"Boyle doesn't," Terry said, closer now. He was the only thing that could make Doug Judy's _DJ & JP 4EVA_ mural look less impressive; suddenly the cartoon version of Jake seemed small. "Because he didn't befriend some guy who tags his bus every week and once tried to hijack his route because he was bored."

" _And_ his sister needed to get to the airport before she missed her flight," Jake said. "Which I now realize doesn't help my point."

"Oh, Jake." Charles shook his head sadly.

"You know how bad traffic at JFK is since they started construction. I just wanted to help him out."

"And that's why you have to clean your own damn bus," Terry said. 

"Yeah." Jake nodded. "That's fair."

**03\. LICENSE TO DRIVE.**

"I'm just saying, check the clock, Peralta. There's no coming back from this one."

Jake glared from the clock to Amy and then to the weird guy who was insisting on paying for his license renewal in loose change.

"I'm just saying, _Mrs. Peralta_ ," he hoped calling her that would distract her into a prolonged rant about the patriarchy and buy him some time; it usually worked, "that you should never underestimate me. You should know this by now." 

The guy stopped counting. "You guys are married? That's crazy."

"Yup!" As she said it, Amy hit enter on her keyboard with a flourish that only meant she'd successfully processed another registration. She was clearly not taking the Mrs. Peralta bait, either, damn it. Jake loved her and wanted to destroy her.

"I will literally pay for your registration if that will get you out of here faster," Jake told the guy.

His jaw dropped like Jake had just told him he won the lottery. "Seriously?"

"That's cheating," Amy said, waving the next person in line forward.

"Damn it, Ames." Jake tried to resist stomping his foot. "Come on, man, don't you have a credit card?"

"I'm protesting the bureaucracy of local government."

"Cool," Jake said. "We're not technically the government, and if we were, we'd be state not local, but you know, America and all that." He pumped his fist a little. "Stick it to the man. Yay." 

"Exactly." The guy nodded and then took three more minutes to count his coins and push them across the counter and Jake didn't even bother to check his math because Amy was now four whole registrations ahead of him.

"Have a great day, next!" He could do this. It would be exhausting and with — oh god, was it really only twenty minutes? — left on the clock it would be crazy, but he could beat Amy and then he would be King of Registrations for the entire month and she would have to pick up his lunch every Friday, even if he wanted a slice from the good place fifteen blocks away where the lines were just as bad as the DMV on the last day of the month. "Hi, how can I help — oh no."

"Sorry," the girl who'd stepped to the counter said, with a hiccuping sob. She had make-up running down her cheeks and her eyes were kind of swollen with how she'd apparently been crying for a while. 

"We just had a bit of a rough go with the driving test," the woman with her said. "Thought we'd be celebrating getting a new license to go with this registration but…" 

Jake glanced out the front windows to the parking lot, where he could see another terrified teen climbing into the driver's seat. He was immediately berated by Holt, probably for not using proper technique to close the door firmly but quietly.

"Don't worry, you're not the first one to be devastated today," Jake told her while taking the paperwork from her mother. "Our usual instructors called out sick so my boss stepped in and he can be a little…" Outside he saw a car slam on the brakes. That was going to be an automatic fail. "Strict."

"He called me an imbecile who shouldn't be allowed to walk unattended, let alone drive," the girl said. "Because I forgot to check my blind spot before merging. I meant to, he just made me so nervous."

"Yeah, he does that." 

"And now I'll never get to drive." A little piece of Jake's heart broke off when she burst into tears again. It wasn't fair; a person should have to have a fully developed prefrontal cortex before they were subjected to verbal evisceration by Holt. Jake was an actual adult with a job and a wife and sometimes still he wanted to dig a hole in the ground and live in it forever when Holt found like, a typo on Jake's self-assessment. 

"I'm sorry," her mother said; Jake wasn't sure if she was talking to him or her daughter. 

"Here, I'm going to set you up for a repeat test tomorrow, just let me do this real quick." He processed the registration in record time — suck it, Amy — and then flipped to the driving test schedule that Gina maintained. She probably wouldn't care that he was doing her job for her. She'd thank him, honestly. "How does eleven AM work? I'll put you on with Scully, it's a guaranteed pass."

The girl looked doubtful. "I —"

"Seriously," he said. "Bring him a meatball sub — don't say I told you this, just act like you carry one around in your purse. Girls do that, right? — and try not to hit any other cars and you'll be joyriding by noon."

"Seriously?"

"I promise," he said, passing the necessary paperwork across the desk. 

"Thank you," her mother said, nudging the girl until she mumbled a tearful thank you, too. 

"That was very sweet of you," Amy said, once they were gone. It was after five, the building had already cleared out. She kissed his cheek while he logged out of his system; he could feel the curve of her smile against his face. "A very dignified way to concede defeat."

"How _dare_ you."

"Loser," she said, kissing him quickly, and then Rosa was above them somehow, standing on a chair and making it rain shredded paper as Boyle hummed the coronation theme and placed a paper crown on Amy's head. She was beaming. 

"I'm going to destroy you next month," he said and knew she knew that he meant _I love you so much_.

**04\. DANGEROUS MINDS.**

"I'm going to make this quick," Vice Principal Jeffords said, "because we don't have a lot of time and we have some very important things to cover."

"Like betrayals," Boyle said, glaring across the room.

"No, Boyle," Terry said, already getting annoyed, but Jake couldn't let it slide. 

"For the last time, I didn't think you were serious!" 

"Oh, so in October when I said, ‘hey, Jake, we should coordinate for the yearbook this year,' and you said, ‘great idea, Charles,' and I said, ‘we can wear matching Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses,' and you said, ‘that'd be amazing, Charles,' and I said, ‘I'll lean to the left and you lean to the right and it'll look like we're leaning on each other,' and you said, ‘hahaha that'd be so funny, Charles,' you thought it was all _a joke_?"

"Yeah," Jake said, nodding. "I thought that was obvious by how much I was laughing. Also, we aren't even next to each other alphabetically. You'd be leaning against Rosa!"

"Not gonna happen," Rosa said. She was holding a scalpel. It must've been dissection week in biology. Jake was just grateful because it kind of proved his point: Charles would _not_ have survived the last week of school if he'd — oh god. The realization hit Jake all at once.

"You didn't."

"Of course I did!" Boyle said, his voice all high and crackly. 

Amy was the quickest, grabbing one of the undistributed yearbooks from the box in the corner and flipping to the faculty page. Sure enough, there he was: _Mr. Charles Boyle, World History_ leaned right up against the frame of _Diaz, Biology_.

"You got them to eliminate your name?" Amy asked Rosa, sounding equal parts horrified and impressed.

"I wanted them to leave out the whole thing, but they wouldn't. This was a compromise."

"Nicely done, Biology," Principal Holt said. "The rest of you could stand to learn a thing or two. This," he tapped his fingers on Boyle's picture, "is what happens when people are too comfortable. We're not doing this next year."

Boyle gasped.

Amy looked from the page to Holt. "You're banning yearbooks?"

"I don't think you can do that, sir," Jeffords said. "Everyone needs a picture." After a beat, he added, "And a name."

Holt barely breathed, but Jake had been working with him long enough to know that that meant he was annoyed that Terry was using rules against him. "Then everyone looks straight at the camera. There will be no funny business."

"Funny business?" Amy mouthed at Jake.

"I think he means no smiling," he whispered to her.

"If I see teeth, you're fired," Holt said. 

"Oh, so it'll just be school-mandated mugshots. Cool." Jake nodded, making a face that made Amy laugh. "Cool cool cool."

**05\. THE MUMMY.**

"Rosa, thank god." Jake was not panicking, he was just walking very briskly through a small crowd of very quiet people in formalwear. There was nothing to see here. Things were completely normal. Business as usual at the museum's annual fundraising gala. Jake was definitely not sweating through his rented tux.

Rosa frowned at him. "Why are you being weird?" 

"Weird? I'm not being weird."

"You're sweating. And your eye is twitching." 

"Alright, fine. Maybe Amy and I were fooling around in the Egyptian room and maybe one of us —"

"So you?"

"No." She raised her eyebrow and he said, "Fine, yes, me, I might have knocked over a tiny vase and look."

He held up a triangular shard of ancient terracotta. At least the whole thing hadn't shattered into complete dust. Though if that had happened, maybe he and Amy could have swept it all up, thrown it in the garbage, and pretended there had never been a vase in the first place. This stupid shard was big enough to be noticeable.

"It's not that bad, right?" he said to Rosa, whose eyes were the biggest he'd ever seen them. 

"No, this is bad," she said. "Real bad."

He definitely was not going to throw up. Not in front of all these people and their champagne flutes. "But you can fix it, right?"

Rosa was one of their best conservators. If she couldn't do it, they were screwed. "Don't know. Probably. Let me see."

Of course, that was when someone turned around and said, "My god, Jacob, is that what I think it is?"

Jake tried to school his face into something less incriminating than what it was already doing. "Uh, depends. What do you think it is?"

His boss's husband reached for the shard, not taking it from Jake, not even touching it, just tracing his finger around the edge. "Fascinating. Where did you get this?"

"I found it," Jake said. "In the park."

Dr. Cozner's mouth opened the slightest bit, which was Dr. Cozner for floored. "Which park?"

"Cen...tral." 

Behind Dr. Cozner, Rosa made a face like Jake should have come up with a better park. God, Amy should've been the one out here, asking Rosa for help. If only he hadn't lost their rocks-paper-scissors contest to decide who had to come beg; stupid rocks, betraying him like this. 

"Interesting. May I?" Dr. Cozner waited for Jake to nod dumbly before taking the shard from him. Rosa's eyes got the tiniest bit wider, which he knew meant _why would you let him hold that, you absolute moron?_. It was a valid question. He raised his eyebrows to say _I don't know!! I'm under a lot of stress right now, clearly!_ "This appears to be an actual artifact. Raymond told me you were passionate about archaeology. He neglected to mention you were digging on your own time."

"Oh, you know me," Jake said. "Love to dig. Wait, Raym— Dr. Holt talks about me? With you?" God, Amy was going to be so jealous.

"Infrequently, yes," Dr. Cozner said. 

Jake made a face. "Okay, ouch. But that's better than never, I guess." 

"He's going to have a lot to say after this," Rosa said pointedly. 

Dr. Cozner looked at her as if he hadn't noticed her until she spoke. "Yes," he said.

Jake and Rosa both waited in silence, but he didn't continue. 

"Well," Jake said, "I should probably take that back. Return it to the vault for safe-keeping." He didn't grab the shard out of Dr. Cozner's hand, but it was a near thing. "Rosa, would you mind escorting me and the artifact that I found back to the lab?"

"It would be my pleasure," she said. "Be right back, babe."

"Um." Jake looked back over his shoulder, watching the woman whose cheek Rosa had just kissed. She was stuck standing with Dr. Cozner, presumably in an uncomfortable silence that would last until one of them died. Or walked away, more likely. 

"We can talk about it or I can glue the urn back together for you, take your pick."

Jake thought about it. Maybe no one would notice the urn was broken. Old things broke all the time, right? And Rosa never brought dates to work functions. The last time she'd brought someone was like, three years ago. "Wait, it's an urn?" His brain caught up with what she'd said. "I thought it was just like, a normal vase."

"It's from 400 BC," she said. "It's obviously an urn."

Jake looked at the shard in his hand. "Am I cursed now?" He could swear his fingers were tingling. That was probably a bad sign.

"No," she said, pushing open the door to the stairwell that led to their offices. "But you left Amy alone, so she's probably been possessed by the spirit of Imhotep by now."

"What?" Jake stopped in his tracks, feeling dizzy. And then he realized. "Hey! You told me you'd never seen _The Mummy_ before."

Rosa turned, looking up at him from half a flight down. "I haven't," she said, yanking open the door. "Why?"

"That's not funny," he said, hurrying as the door slammed shut behind her. "Rosa. _Rosa!_ "

**00\. DIE HARD.**

"Does everyone understand the plan?" Jake crouched behind the back of a parked car, trying to stay out of sight of the security cameras. It wouldn't do to tip anyone off, not at this late stage.

Everyone nodded. 

Jake took a deep breath and then decided it didn't hurt to quadruple check. "Uli, Marco, what's first?"

No one said anything. 

"Guys, we practiced these code names for a week." Jake could feel the beginning of a headache creeping in; it would go away once the adrenaline hit, but for right now he touched his forehead, trying to keep it at bay. 

"Sorry, Jakey," Scully said. "It's just hard to remember."

"It's your name but with half the letters."

"Those letters are the important parts!" Hitchcock said. "If you take them from Scully, I can barely recognize him anymore."

Jake closed his eyes. "Oh my god."

"Enough," Terry cut in before things could escalate. "Just tell him what you're supposed to do."

"And maybe write your names on your hands so you don't forget who you are," Amy said, throwing a sharpie at him.

"Good idea," Jake said, trying not to think about Amy on a beach in one of those flowy dresses when all this was over. He couldn't get ahead of himself, couldn't afford to get sloppy now. They had to take it one step at a time. "Uli, Marco, go."

"Security desk. Then we stay out of the way," Scully said.

"And we don't let anybody past us, no matter what kind of snacks they offer," Hitchcock added.

"Right. Good." They were the most precarious parts of the plan. "And then?"

"We secure the north stairwell," Amy said, pointing between herself and Rosa. "Terry and Holt — sorry, Tony and Franco — take the elevators, then Theo disables them."

"I disable _everything_!" Boyle yelled, making everyone shush him. He pulled his earbuds out. "Sorry. They're noise-canceling!"

"Yes, we know, Boyle," Gina yelled from where she was still in the van. 

"Theo," Jake tried to say, but it was pointless because Gina was still yelling. 

"You've told us all like, three hundred times this week alone."

"Well excuse me for appreciating a sale," he said. 

"We don't have time for this," Terry said, looking antsy. "It's five minutes to nine."

"It's six minutes to nine," Holt said. "I told you we should synchronize our watches."

"We don't have time for that," Jake said, checking his own watch that said it was four minutes to nine. Jesus. It didn't matter. As long as they were in the doors around nine. Precision didn't matter until they were on the forty-second floor, and then it was all in his hands. His and Boyle's. "Everything's going to be fine."

"Now you've done it. You've put a jinx upon our heads." 

Jake stared at him. It had been years and on some level he knew Holt never joked about anything, ever, but sometimes he said things that sounded like they should be a joke and it always threw Jake for a loop.

An hour and a half later, while Rosa was busy placing charges into the vault door to disable the locks that Boyle had somehow accidentally jammed when trying to hack it open, Holt sidled up next to Jake and said, "I told you. It's a jinx."

"Please." Jake snorted. "A jinx would be if we opened the vault and it was empty. Or if there was some stupid cop crawling around in the vents, picking us off one by one."

"Clear!" Rosa pushed at Jake, herding everyone behind a nearby wall. 

"Uli, Marco, heads up," Amy said into her walkie talkie, "Rosa's — _Eddie's_ ," she corrected off Jake's look, "going to blow the door. Charles — I mean Theo — disabled the smoke alarms, so we should be good, but watch for any red flags."

"Copy that," Scully said. 

"Is his mouth full?" Jake asked her, ducking his head when Rosa pressed the button on her detonator.

"I saw him replace his extra ammo with chicken parm," Rosa said. Jake could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. "And Hitchcock said he was bringing grenades, but they were baked potatoes. Fully loaded."

"So we have no safety net unless Marco's going to throw a potato at someone?" 

Rosa looked at him. 

"You're right, he'd never sacrifice food like that. Okay, everybody, we are in slightly more dire straits than I thought, but if everyone can just be cool and load up these bags, we'll be out of here before we even have to worry about it."

"Damn it, Peralta," Holt said, "now you're just inviting trouble."

Jake didn't tell him to shut up, but only because he didn't want to know what Holt's face looked like if someone told him to shut up. He was sure there was some way to make "completely expressionless" look absolutely terrifying.

Plus, Terry was nearly finished prying the vault door open, and Jake could practically hear the Hallelujah chorus as America's last batch of physical bearer bonds slowly appeared. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth, just sitting there, waiting for him. 

"It's beautiful," Boyle said, sounding for all the world like he was about to start crying. Rosa shoved empty duffle bags into both their chests.

"Let's go," she said. "We have fourteen minutes to clear out."

"That's right, people." Amy stepped into the vault, a light shining down on her like the heavens had opened up. "Fourteen minutes. I need everyone in two lines. If you have a bag, step to the left, if you have empty hands, step to the right. Your other left," she said, waiting until Boyle found the correct line. "Good. Now, bag people, you're going to approach, one at a time, and fill your bag until it is a manageable weight. I will help. Two people in the vault at a time. Empty hands, you are going to wipe down all surfaces with these." She produced two industrial-sized canisters of bleach wipes. "No fingerprints, no hair samples, nothing. We will not be caught. Got it?"

It was quiet for a moment.

"I said, _got it_?" 

Everyone scrambled to say yes, Rosa reaching for the wipes so she and Holt could get to work bleaching every surface. 

"Good. Now let's go." She clapped her hands twice, brutally efficient. "We have twelve minutes to get this money and get out of here."

"I love you," Jake said, unable to look away from her face even as she was taking the empty bag from his hands. 

"Aw, I love you, too." She kissed him, all warm and smelling like gunpowder residue. "But I'll have approximately seventy-one million more reasons to love you in like, ten minutes, so keep it together."

"Oh, approximately?" he said, laughing as she started stacking the bonds into his bag. "Just a quick little mental math there, just a ballpark."

"Shut up and stuff it," she said, shaking the open mouth of the bag.

" _Shut Up and Stuff It_ , title of your —"

"Not now, Jake!"

"Right," he said. "Stuffing it. Millions of dollars on the line. Got it. I'm focusing."

**

"Look at those idiots," Gina said, pointing out the window as she drove them away from the parking garage at a speed Jake was pretty sure could be classified as unsuspicious. "You're too slow, dummies!"

Jake watched as three cop cars raced past them, lights and sirens blaring. Gina slowed to a stop and then made a right, taking them towards the highway. Two hours and they'd be in Chula Vista, ditching the van and splitting up. Holt would take the bonds to a safe house in Tahoe, where his husband Kevin was waiting to do whatever fancy money thing Kevin did in his downtime. Jake had asked repeatedly and never fully understood, but it didn't because Kevin always made sure the money ended up in the right account.

Jake and Amy would fly east, back to Brooklyn, or maybe they could swap their passports out for better aliases and go south, end up in Costa Rica until the dust settled. Or west, all the way to Fiji or some other island in the middle of nowhere, throw their phones in the Pacific and wait for Boyle to send smoke signals that it was okay to come back.

He felt jittery with adrenaline, the cops a distant memory now as Gina drove them steadily away from the scene of the crime. He knew, without a doubt, that they'd gotten away with it. 

He twisted in his seat so he could see everyone else in the van: Hitchcock and Scully sharing a back of chips in the far back; Boyle, sound asleep, snoring with his forehead mashed against the window; Rosa cleaning her nails with a switchblade and Holt, sitting three careful away from her, his posture ramrod straight as he somehow did a crossword puzzle in the dark; Terry in the front with Gina, surreptitiously checking a map because he didn't trust her navigation; and Amy, next to him, her hair slipping out of its ponytail, her smile brighter than any sunbeam. His team. His dysfunctional, wonderful, insane — and now, insanely rich — team.

He wouldn't trade them for anyone in the world. 

"So," he said, too amped up to let them enjoy the quiet, "who should we rob next?" 

Everyone looked up. He expected them to groan, or roll their eyes, or tell him to let them enjoy this one thing, but instead, they all just looked at him like they were honestly considering it. 

"You tell us," Holt said, his gaze steady, "Hans."

Jake didn't even try to hold back his grin.


End file.
